Costa Coffee partners with Podback for aluminium coffee pod recycling programme

Costa Coffee, a British coffeehouse chain with headquarters in Loudwater, Buckinghamshire, England, has reportedly entered into a partnership with Podback to trial run coffee pod recycling. Podback, a UK-based coffee pod recycling service provider, will offer recycling assistance in 142 Costa Coffee stores across the UK.

During the trial, customers at Costa Coffee stores will pick up free Podback recycling bags for coffee pod collection and return them once full for recycling. Podback recycling bags will be available in all 133 Costa Coffee stores located within Tesco stores across the UK and 9 Costa Coffee stores in the Swindon area.

The objective of this programme is to offer a recycling option for packaging items what cannot be easily recycled at home or kerbside.

To enable consumers to recycle coffee pods more easily, Podback has also installed recycling points in the Tesco stores to make the recycling opportunity available widespread. These recycling points accept both plastic and aluminium pod from any Podback member brands, including Costa Coffee pods for Nespresso, Tassimo and NESCAFE Dolce Gusto machines.

The rollout of the new recycling points began in August. Together, Podback and Costa Coffee aim to collect and recycle more aluminium or plastic coffee pods through specialist facilities, where different materials in the pods can be sorted and separated from aluminium.

Rick Hindley, Executive Director of Podback, said: “This trial gives Podback customers the opportunity to drop off their used pods at local Costa Coffee stores, a response to customer feedback telling us people want a choice of ways to recycle that fit with their daily lives. We are excited to be working with Costa Coffee and Tesco to make this a reality in more than 140 locations across the country. We are sure Podback customers will welcome the new service, and hope that it is the first step to rolling out more drop-off locations throughout the UK.”

Liz Higgins, Head of Sustainability at Costa Coffee, said: “We are always looking for new ways to make it easier for our customers to recycle our packaging. Through this trial with Podback, in-store drop-off points will offer coffee pod users the chance to conveniently recycle their pods with us – whether they are Costa branded or not. The new front-of-house recycling units will be supported by increased messaging in store, which we hope will act as a reminder to customers when visiting our participating stores. The trial will allow us to gather valuable customer feedback and insights, which we will use to enhance our future recycling solutions for pods, cups, and other packaging materials.”

Catherine David, Director Behaviour Change and Business Programmes WRAP, said: “The trial with Costa Coffee is a fantastic way to normalise and simplify recycling coffee pods. Due to their multiple component materials, these pods must be sent to a specialist recycling facility. Now, customers can easily drop them off in any participating Costa Coffee store. Making recycling simple is key to success, and capturing trickier items like pods at scale is an important step forward.”